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Friday, 24 April 2015

Every day’s a good day. Although on a cold winter’s day when I hear
the rain on the roof, I would rather stay snuggled up in bed.

What is your
favourite book from childhood? Tell me about it.

So many! My first favourite was ‘Matilda and Her Kittens,’ which I
knew by heart, and as the title tell you, all about a mother cat and her
kittens. Animals I have always loved so their stories, ‘Call of The Wild,’
‘White Fang,’ etc, I devoured them. At about ten I read ‘These Old Shades,’
which was my mother’s book, and fell in love with historical novels. Rafael
Sabatini, Baroness Orczy, Thackeray, Dickens, Scott, I read them all. Today I
tend to read mostly non-fiction, but I have catholic tastes, and enjoyed
recently Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. I must admit fantasy doesn’t do it
for me, and science fiction I have read, but am not a complete fan.

What are you
currently reading?

I am currently re-reading an old book, ‘Black William,’ set in the
18th century in Northumberland by Robert Neill, an author I particularly enjoy,
and have just finished reading ‘The Royal Mob,’ by Theresa Sherman. This was
basically a good idea by the author, but it irritated me hugely as it was
riddled with mistakes, including spelling, and badly needed a good historical
proof reader.

Do you remember the
first story you ever wrote? Why does it stick in your memory?

It was a ‘whodunnit,’ I wrote at about ten, and until you asked the
question I had forgotten all about it. At eleven I wrote a play, that I put on
at Campbells Bay School, with some of my fellow classmates taking part. I can’t
even remember the title of it today, but still have the photos of us in
costume.

What’s the best thing
about being a writer?

Just the pleasure, (when the muse is with you), of getting
everything down in written form and reading it. Of course, when you see it in
book form, for a writer I don’t think you can have anything more satisfying.

What is your writing
process?

I don’t really have one, I am slightly ashamed to say. I do lead a
very busy life, like most people today, and it has to fit in with lots of other
activities and interests. I write mostly in the late autumn through winter and
early spring.

When you're not
writing, how do you spend your time?

I guess I am always on the go. With family, (including seven
grandchildren), I sometimes feel I am running a taxi service, and am a child
and people minder! The garden, friends, films & theatre, travel, beach
house, etc. There are never enough hours in the day to do all I want to do,
(and sometimes need to do!)

What are you
currently working on? Explain.

New stories. Ah!!! I have started an up to date thriller, to try a
different genre, but am also playing with the idea of a family in an early New
Zealand novel set in the far North during the land wars. I am also toying with
another mystery set in the 1880’s at an Indian hill station, and maybe an Irish
novel set in the 18th century of the troubles between two families, one of
English extraction, the other Irish. Oh, lots of ideas… so little time!

Friday, 17 April 2015

Often your first book is quite easy to get on
with. You have a burning idea that won’t let you rest until you get it down in
words and carefully shaped to perfection. You live with it for years, mulling
it over in quiet moments, waking at night with new insights, considering every
angle before it’s finally published and you start to think of yourself a s a
real writer.

The second book is a very different
prospect. Suddenly you’re under pressure to produce a finished manuscript in much
less time to capitalise on the success of the first. That leisurely thought process
that took years for the first book is telescoped into a hurried rush to plan
and plot and pace, to find more of those magic characters that readers will
love and give them a compelling narrative. But it’s still a joy to discover the
story as it unfolds in your head. That’s why we write, isn’t it?

But now you’re a published author with
certain commitments to fulfil. Readers are (you hope) eager for your next book,
and they won’t wait forever. So can you deliver?

I’m currently stalled before starting my next
book. Quite apart from being kept very busy with publishing other people’s
books, I’m stalling on my own writing because I haven’t reached that critical
mass necessary for the explosion of creativity. It’s like lighting a camp fire.
You need plenty of small kindling, wood shavings, dry moss, and matches or a
flint to make it catch light. I’m assembling those ingredients – setting, plot
outline, one or two characters, but don’t yet have enough for my imagination to
catch alight. I need that spark of passion for the idea that will carry me through the
months of writing.

Perhaps I need to apply the blowtorch of
penury to see a decent conflagration! Gotta get those Amazon cheques coming
more often!

Sunday, 12 April 2015

I have read several articles about the use of ‘bad’
language recently and thought some of the points worth passing on; and
acknowledge Nicholas Butler’s article in North
and South February 2015.

Late last year Andrew Little, newly
elected leader of Labour, challenged the prime minister in parliament to ‘cut
the crap and apologise’ after it became apparent John Key had lied about his
association with blogger Cameron Slater.

The general public are accustomed to
politicians lying, but they are not accustomed to politicians swearing and
speaking so bluntly. Rather than provoking any criticism, Andrew Little’s
comments were repeated with relish by the media and he was admired for ‘saying
it like it is’.

There has been research in many areas
about the use and effectiveness of swearing. MRI’s have been used to measure
changes in blood flow, and hence brain activity as subjects were presented with
neutral, negative and arousing words. The scans indicated that emotionally
arousing words, like obscenities, travel via a different pathway to
non-emotional words, a pathway that starts in the amygdala deep in the ancient
limbic regions of our brain. Vulgar language activates our primal, emotional
brain, cutting out our more rational cortex. Our brain unconsciously registers
the depth of the speaker’s feeling, even if we reject their choice of
words.For that reason ‘cathartic
swearing’ (when hammer hits thumb) really does reduce the pain more than an
ordinary expression might.

Interestingly, although Maori has
contributed various words to our local vernacular, it hasn’t contributed any
common swear words. In fact Maori is one of the few languages reputed to have
no swear words, perhaps because early dictionaries were compiled by
missionaries. Some people believe the succinct ‘fuckwit’ is a home grown New
Zealand swear word but that is not certain. However, apparently the expression
‘shit oh dear’ with its combination of bluntness and understatement is
definitely Kiwi.

What constitutes swearing or offensive
language has changed. In the early 20th century, calling someone a
twerp was considered sufficiently offensive to warrant a prison sentence;
nowadays it is regarded so inoffensive as to be almost a term of endearment. I
grew up believing calling someone ‘a dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking miserable
so and so’ was as bad as it got, because that was the worst thing my father
ever said about bad drivers who cut in on us.But if someone shouted that as we drove down Queen Street these days,
we’d probably giggle.In the 1960’s
permissiveness turned dirty words into good clean fun and as people cared less
and less about God, religious swearing lost its sting. Nowadays a new trend is
emerging. Racial and other derogatory epithets like ‘nigger’, ‘retard’ and
‘faggot’ are growing more offensive, and offensive to more people.

For many writers using bad language is
simply unacceptable. Swearing is still stigmatised; seen as a sign of lax
morals, lack of refinement, impoverished vocabulary. About the only thing
missing is the suggestion that swearing makes you fat. And yet people still let
rip and when it comes from an unexpected source as it did with Andrew Little,
the infectious informality finds plenty of support. Because swear words
communicate emotions in a way that normal language cannot.

Friday, 3 April 2015

Hands up now! How many of you have read, How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran? Yes, I realise it was published
four years ago, but you have to understand I’m the one who’s always tagging
along at the end.

If you want a totally refreshing look on life through the eyes of
English woman C. Moran then, it’s all here. In among the belly laughs are words
of great wisdom for women, possibly men too. You may have to put the laughs on
hold for a while, but the wisdom is certainly there.

I’ve also learned that Caitlin has a number of male admirers of her
revelations about women. God help us if they ever act upon some of them!

Another thing you’ll discover is the high percentage of woman-kind
who can knowledgeably pat her on the back for some of her insights. Over the
years we may have buried those thoughts as bizarre but now we learn most of the
female gender are just as crazy as we’ve always thought ourselves. Well, not me
personally of course, but heaps of others!

Look at the chapter headings…I become Furry, What to
call my Breasts? I Need a Bra, I am Fat, I Go Lap-Dancing, I get into Fashion, to
mention but a few.

This is a whole hand-book on how to face the world from the age of
13. In between the unrestrained laughter one finds such paraphrased gems as the
over-sized breasts of a desperately running girl calling out, ‘Just go on
without me, I’ve had a good life.’It seems to me, we are sadly lacking in books written with a
delightfully fresh slant, filled with humour and dare I say it, written by
women. This is a dandy; try it for your summer reading.